The Marinids

In 1217 AD, as the Almohad dynasty was collapsing, Sultan Abu Yusuf took over control of Morocco and founded the Marinid dynasty. The Marinid rulers were army men, cavalry riders.

A tour of Fez

The Marinids made their capital city at Fez, and tried over and over
to reunite the old Almohad empire by conquering their neighbors, the
'Abd al-Wazids and the Hafsids. But they couldn't do it. When the Marinids
tried to attack Spain,
they failed there too. But they did manage to keep control of Morocco
and the trade through the Straits of Gibraltar.

Another important city of the Marinid kingdom was Tangier,
which was the home of the geographer and traveler Ibn Battuta.
The Marinids ruled Morocco until 1465 AD, when the Ottomans conquered them. So the first Portuguese explorations down the coast of West Africa to kidnap slaves stopped to visit the Marinid kingdom.

Bibliography and further reading:

Karen Eva Carr, PhD.Assoc. Professor Emerita, History
Portland State University

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Professor Carr holds a B.A. with high honors from Cornell University in classics and archaeology, and her M.A. and PhD. from the University of Michigan in Classical Art and Archaeology. She has excavated in Scotland, Cyprus, Greece, Israel, and Tunisia, and she has been teaching history to university students for a very long time.

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